The "Magic" Fountain, Park Güell, & 2938732 Other Things.

So. On, Friday night, we went to go see the Magic mountain Fountain. What we didn't know, was that the Gay Pride Festival was going on right infront of it, with thousands and thousands of people because it's gay pride weekend here (didn't know that). So, after spending 25 minutes fighting through the crowd to get behind the "concert", we discovered that could simply walk around using the designated walking paths.
After all that, the sound to the Magic Fountain was turned off because of the concert. I mean, we got to see the water, and the lights.... But it wasn't the same (I'm assuming).
 So. That was an experience.

Next, we went to Park Güell today and it was pretty cool I suppose.
It's extremely far away, and it was quite a long metro ride/walk. And the hill leading up to it. My gosh. People weren't just complaining when they said that the hill was horrible, because it's basically a 45 degree angle. For like 2 miles. It's awful. That had a couple escalators, but not the entire way.... It was rough.

This guy was just off the wall crazy. I'm actually proud
that this picture seems to sum him up pretty well.

After getting there and looking around for a while, I discovered, much to my disappointment, that the mosaic lizard that everyone talks about, really isn't that big. I assumed it was massive... I guess that's more of my fault though.
I'd say the best part of that adventure was this random crazy dude at the top in a full leopard print "outfit". He was bells wrapped around his ankles, and he was basically just singing (screaming) at people, while playing (thrashing) his guitar in a way that may have resembled a rhythm, if you covered your ears and shook your head back and forth. This random guy was good fun to watch, but I'd have to say that I'm grateful that he didn't single me out and try to sing to me (like he did to some people), because I probably would have ran. He was grade-A crazy.

After that, today was mainly my shopping day (for gifts). Overall, that was uneventful, but after finishing (more or less) I discovered that buying shoes in Barcelona is borderline impossible, which maddens me because their shoes are so wonderful.
The problem is that there are SOO many more sizes available here, than in the US and the store employees really don't care about you (also that whole language barrier thing). The only employees that I have ever not liked here, are the "zapateria" employees. Just not nice, or attentive, or helpful, or anything
. Doesn't matter how expensive the shoes are, they just aren't helpful. Ugh. I'm going to get my shoes. It will happen. I don't care if I have to yell at some middle-aged store clerk, I'm going to get service! (And made in Spain shoes)

Bob Esponja Y La Estrella Rosada & Other Misadventures

"Spongebob and the Pink Star" is the direct translation.

I say this because during dinner, we usually watch "How I met your Mother" in spanish, but we finished all of the episodes that we had, so we watched Spongebob in spanish and it was great.
My host mother and I were singing "Bob Esponja, Bob Esponja" while cleaning up, it's actually catchy. If you hear them say it on TV anyway....

Also, a friend and I actually went to an intercambio exchange last night. The one I was going to go to before, but I didn't want to go alone. It turn out to be a great deal of fun. Everyone there was just from the most random countries and they were all trying to speak English, some more successfully than others. We ended up talking to an older Spanish woman for roughly an hour and a half (when I say older, I mean roughly 40) in English and in Spanish, just switching back in forth (at seemingly random times, may I add). We learned a lot about Spanish history, and it was quite interesting (even more so to actually learn about it in Spanish). You would think that this woman was a history teacher or something, it was ridiculous. It was also fairly funny because she would stand obnoxiously close to us, so throughout the entire conversation we were subconsciously backing away and by the time that the intercambio finished, we were outside of the bar and a good 10-15 feet away from it. Definitely not used to that.

We also went to a bookstore. My gosh. I don't find bookstores even remotely interesting in the US, but here... Just every book that I would normally read in English interests me 120938 times more in Spanish. I even picked up a Garfield comic book in Spanish. There were soo many things I wanted to buy, but I decided that I couldn't own the store, so maybe I'd just have to settle for a book or two. (I want to go back and buy "The Peanuts" comic and "Animal Farm" in Spanish.)

After all of this, I went back to the Jazz Club. It wasn't AS good as tuesday, but it was still pretty great. And for 6 euros, no complaints. I think the Blues crowd is more excitable than the Jazz crowd.
A Jazz trio was playing and they were pretty good. Guitar, organ (keyboard), and drums. I felt like they needed to be a little more in-synch  It seemed to be basically a 2 hour solo that was missing rhythm at times.

Once in a lifetime muffin.

Sometime during these adventures I had a once in a lifetime muffin.
You know it's good because I had to use a fork in knife. (Fact)

Me llamo "Neck" & "Harlem Jazz Club"

So, I had to do a group project over the weekend.

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECK

Everyone decided that Starbucks was a good meeting spot (don't know why, the coffee is bad, and the internet is unusable). The only really enjoyable thing that happened was that when I told the "Barista" that my name was "Nick" (because they HAVE to write it on the cup), she wrote "Neck".
Background : With a Spanish accent, my name is not pronounced "Nick", it is pronounced "Neeck". This is because with the Spanish language, an "I" is pronounced as an "E" and the opposite is also true. So, whenever a Spaniard sees my name written, they pronounce is as "Neeck", or "Nee-cohlas".

And I love it more than anything in the world.

I felt bad for this girl on the Saxophone. The reed
broke maybe 30 seconds into the first of two songs
making her performance pretty off.

Also, finally found the Jazz club. And my gosh.
It was so much fun.
Just random people switching in and out with the house band playing the Blues all last night. Some people were amazing, some were okay, but overall it was great. The crowd was so enthusiastic, and everyone was completely into it.
Furthermore, like 5 minutes into the show some random dude sat next to me wearing a shinny (AND I MEAN SHINNY) leather jacket and a fedora. I decided that he had to be playing tonight because you can't just wear a fedora into a jazz club and not play. That's just... wrong. So I spent like 45 minutes trying to decide as to what I thought he was going to play. I ended up split between drummer and pianist because he didn't have an instrument with him. But then I happened to look down and see his WHITE Jazz Oxfords (don't know how I missed them). I knew instantly that no drummer would ever wear those and that he had to be a pianist.

That's him on the piano. Sitting down just wasn't
his thing.

I. Was. Right.
HAHAHA
This dude was a blue's playing machine. He was jumping around (while playing the piano AND singing,) and cuing off for others to solo and everything.


And (this I found hilarious) blues and jazz are only sung in English. I don't know if that's true for everywhere, but in Spain it is. So I absolutely love how they sing, in English, with the most American "blues" accent and then after the song is over they immediately switch back and ramble off in Catalan or Spanish at 2198712893 words-per-second. It was just astonishing how American they sounded when they sang and then when they spoke they completely lost any semblance of Americanism. It was wonderful.

Just a note, in the pictures, there are people sitting. There were maybe 10 people sitting, with the rest standing/clapping/jumping/cheering for the musicians.

My, What Loud Fireworks You Have...

So, San Juan is basically the Fourth of July, but bigger and louder in every way.

I don't know if you can see, but those little bumps are heads.
Just bagillions of them.

The beach was completely packed. Like thousands and thousands down the entire coast, just infinite people. All setting off fireworks (but us, I could not find anywhere to buy fireworks for the life of me).

These were no ordinary fireworks. It sounded like they dropped us in the middle of a warzone while a protest was going on. Every firecracker is like a shotgun next to your ear, it's ridiculous. I don't know how they do it, but those... those are fireworks. Not this sissy american nonsense.
It's not a pop, it's a BANG.

Otherwise, it's basically just 3209483094 people sitting on a beach.

You know, all night.

(FYI, the only people that go into the water at midnight are... well, tourists.)

We left sometime after two. We were all pretty tired, and nothing was really happening. I'm all for just sitting and relaxing, but the food and the drinks were way too expensive to sit there all night (note to self, bring food to the beach).

It was pretty awe inspiring to see that many people in the same place. I can't quite emphasize that all of Barcelona was there. That just blew my mind.

Because you can totally use mortar fireworks
in the middle of the crowd...

Also, don't worry. I won't become a photographer anytime soon. Obviously don't have the skill set.

These Bands...

Before the show...

For the past few days, everywhere I go, I always run into these
street performers.

But these are no ordinary street performers, these guys are grade A acts. The latest group I saw was very lively and still decent musicians. The bassist was jumping around and the guitarist/singer was dancing while playing.

Thoroughly entertaining.

My host mother said that yesterday, or maybe the day before was international music day or something(?)

I'm not sure, but I am enjoying these pop-up bands.

I also got super lost last night, and ended up doing nothing. (Although I did find the coolest of music stores, just so many instruments that I've never even seen. Like they were selling Lutes.)
BUT MARK MY WORDS. TONIGHT WILL NOT BE A BUST.
 

During, these guys had some moves...

Plans Change..

So, as of now, Estrella's parents have decided that she isn't allowed to go out for San Juan, so she's trying to get me to go with her cousin, and her cousins friends... In Gava, I think(?) Not entirely sure if I want to go, but we'll see. I'm just going with the flow right now.
Also, I've decided that I want to go to a Jazz Club tonight. I'm pretty excited for this. My host mother knows one of them fairly well and she thinks that there's a Cuban band playing there tonight. So I'll see if I can find this place. It strikes me as "very local", which means that it's super hard to find.
Another topic, it turns out that during my last weekend here, I'll be in France for at least most of it, if not all, so next weekend is kind of IT. Even if I have a night free on the weekend I go to France, I'm pretty sure that I'll just use it to ponder as to where did my six weeks go...
 But back to next weekend, I think I'm going to take the train to madrid for a day/night/some period of time. I'm going to try to anyway. No promises... I mean it's like a 6-9 hour ride with stops, for the overnight so... I don't know. That's a lot of travel for one day.

Midterm, More Intercambio Than I Can Handle, & San Juan

Sorry for the lack of anything. I had a midterm this morning. It was the first oral midterm that I've ever had and I was fairly nervous because everyone that went before did very poorly. But when it was my classes turn, I sucked it up and went first.
We had to pick a random piece of paper with four questions on it. We could change pieces of paper once, but you never know what you'll get, it could be worse. So when I knew three of the four questions fairly well, I kept mine.
I ended up answering the first three very easily and completely correctly, on the fourth I had to think a little, and when I took my best guess, I ended up getting it correct.
Things here are graded on a 0-10 scale, 10 being a 100 etc.
So, long story short, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person who got a hundred, so woo.

Also, yesterday I went out and walked around with my Intercambio. It seems that her English has improved immensely (I think that she's just more comfortable around me, so she isn't scared to speak in English.) I feel like she's the least stereotypical Spaniard (that I've met), she doesn't like coffee and she doesn't like Barcelona (and think's that it's boring, not sure as to what she's comparing too, but okay..). Even so, she complains about the weather just like everyone else here, "Oh no, it's only 65 degrees, put on a coat," or "Ahh so hot, it's 75." These people don't know weather. I love em, but they don't know what real weather is.
"Gotcha" still seems to be the leading word in her English vocabulary (much to my amusement), and I helped to reinforce her understand of "Under", "Over", "Above", "In-Between", and "Here". Just an FYI, does anyone know how hard it is to explain any of those terms, without English, just using hand-signals AND without looking like a moron?
I'm sure that I looked especially stupid while explaining In-Between. I ran over to a tree, point at it VERY enthusiastically, ran over to her, pointed very enthusiastically, then ran and stood in the middle of her and the tree while saying In-Between like 3928423 times and jumping up and down. There's no going half-way in my explanation hah. I mean, I'll probably look like an idiot anyway, so she might as well learn something.
Just before she left, she invited me to come out with her and her friends for San Juan, and I'm a little concerned. On a scale of 1-10, these people party like a 30 on the weekdays, and like a 60 on the weekends. San Juan is the biggest party holiday that they have here.
She told me to take a train to Sitges, the beach town I visited earlier, and that I would then have to take a train back to Barcelona on monday, (we have monday off from school for recuperation purposes, if that says anything). Naturally I asked where everyone slept, because you know.... we'll be there for a night. Apparently there is no sleeping on San Juan. None. Nada. Zilch. Cero. Zero. So, we'll see how this goes, as usually, I have no idea as to what I'm getting myself into. Cheers.

Last, but not least (whew, just imagine that I'm saying this entire post without any pauses, it'll be more interesting, I promise), I was tired of being with Americans, I mean I'm in Spain right? So I just went to my favorite little (literally) cafe, the "Petit Pot", and asked the bartender where I could meet some locals and where I could practice Spanish. He told me that I should basically just walk into some bar or cafe, and talk to people, but then he stopped and told me about a bar/cafe that was nearby and that had an Intercambio program. Basically people go there on thursdays, and they practice languages, (I think it's all languages, not just English and Spanish), so a friend and I are going to that tonight because... I mean if I love having one intercambio, then having several will just be the greatest thing ever, right?

Wrong. That was basically the most intimidating thing I've ever tried to do. I have enough guts to do a lot of things here, but I cannot walk into a bar that I haven't been to, talk to a bunch of people who at least 10 years older than me, who I don't know, and in a language that I'm not comfortable with. So, I'd love to say how it went, but that's not possible because it didn't happen, for me anyway.
Furthermore, my host mother and I ran into one of her neighbors today, who apparently has a daughter who wants to learn english. So I'm pretty sure that my host mother is going to try and set up a "get together" for us so we can practice our respective languages. That's all. I'm drained and it's not even 9.